Officials hold meeting after student brings airsoft gun to school

An incident involving kids playing with airsoft style guns occurred at the Wright Charter School playground on Monday. That incident has the school district and the sheriff's department dealing with a touchy situation.

They're good kids, from good homes, in a good Santa Rosa neighborhood and even at the right charter school trouble creeps in.

"They described it in the phone call as a 4-inch airsoft gun," one parent said.

The school district is limited in what it can say.

"Any discipline that we do act on is confidential," Wright School District Superintendent Adam Stein said.

On Monday, a 9-year-old brought the airsoft style pellet gun onto campus and traded it to a 10-year-old friend, who then turned around and began shooting the gun at other students. According to some reports, at least three students were hit by plastic pellets before the school staff took the gun away from him.

The Sonoma County Sheriff's Department got involved and had a meeting with the school district and parents.

"One child is nine and the other is 10, so California state law does not recognize that they have criminal intent to commit a crime," Sonoma County Sheriff's Office Sgt. Mitch Mana said.

Anywhere else, the story might have gone unnoticed, but in Santa Rosa last fall a sheriff's deputy shot and killed 13-year-old Andy Lopez when he mistook his airsoft rifle for an AK47 rifle.

That shooting and those toys are sore subjects in this community.

Monday's incident did not help, even though no children suffered major injuries.

"My son, It bothered my son a lot," one parent said.

"That was a kid that made a really stupid decision that brought this to school," mother Jessica Hopkins said.

"I don't appreciate it. If it was my kid that was shot, we would have some problems," mother Ashley Zephren said.